RESEARC H Open Access
Retirement intentions of dentists in New South
Wales, Australia
Deborah Schofield
1*
, Susan Fletcher
2
, Sue Page
2
, Emily Callander
1
Abstract
Background: The Australian dental workforce is ageing and current shortages have been predicted to worsen with
the retirement of the growing contingent of older dentists. However, these prediction s have been based on
retirement trends of previous generations and little is known about the retirement intentions of today’s older
dentists.
Methods: The Dentist Retirement Intentions Survey was mailed to 768 NSW Australian Dental Association
members aged over 50 and achieved a response rate of 20%. T-tests, ANOVAs and multivariate regression were
used to analyse the data.
Results: On average, participants intend to retire at the age of 66, although they would prefer to do so earlier
(p < 0.05). Those intending to leave the workforce within the next 5 years represent 43%. The most common
reasons dentists expect to retire are to have more leisure time, to be able to afford to stop working, and job stress
or pressure.
Conclusions: The current generation of older dentists intends to retire later than their predecessors. Most wish to
remain involved in dentistry in some capacity following retirement, and may assist in overcoming workforce
shortages, either by practising part time or training dental students.
Background
In line with many professions within Australia, the den-
tal workforce has aged significantly since 1986 [1]. With
the majority of dentists aged in the 40-48 year age
group, this pattern is expected to continue [2], and by

Data used
The Dentist Retirement Intentions Study is a collabora-
tive venture between the University of Sydney and the
NSW branch of the Australian Dental Association
* Correspondence: [email protected]
1
NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney,
92-94 Parramatta Rd, Camperdown, NSW, 1450 Australia
Schofield et al. Human Resources for Health 2010, 8:9
http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/8/1/9
© 2010 Schofield et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
(NSWADA). In developing a survey instrument for the
study, a number of consultations with practising dentists
were conducted and the final survey was approved by
the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Com-
mittee in February 2007.
The survey collected demographic and practice char-
acteristics; information on dent ists’ intended age o f
retirement and expected reasons for leaving the work-
force; as well as financial details such as the value of
assets a nd debts, expected sources of funding for their
retirement, and superannuation information.
Contact details of 768 dentists aged 50 years or more
were obtained from the NSWADA member database;
this figure included 50% of older dentists in Sydney and
100% of those located elsewhere in the state. Surveys
were sent to these 768 NSWADA me mbe rs in Octob er
2007 with a reply-paid envelope included; responses

(SPSS Inc., Chicago, 2006) with significance set at p = 0.05.
Results
Characteristics of respondents
Of the 153 respondents to the Dentists Retirement
Intentions Study, seven were retired and were excluded
from the analyses of retirement intentions. The 146
practising dentists who participated in the study had an
average age of 57.5 years but ranged from 50 to
75 years old (similar to the national distribution, where
according to the ABS Census the average age of dentists
aged 50 years and over was about 58 years). The age
distribution of dentists in the study was also similar for
the national distribution for dentists over 50 years of
age according to the ABS Census. In the ABS Census
there was 41.1% of dentists aged between 50 and
54 years, and 37% i n this age group in the retirement
study; 26.7% aged 55-59 years in the census and 29.7%
in the retirement study; 16.6% aged 60-64 in the census
and 20.3% in the retirement study; 7.4% aged 65 to 69
in the census and 7.3% in the retirement study; and
8.1% aged over 70 in the census and 5.6% aged over 70
in the retirement study. One 124 (85 percent) were
male (similar to the national distribution, where accord-
ing to the ABS Census, 90% of dentists aged 50 years
and over are male). According to the ABS Census only
1.9% of dentists aged 55 years and ov er were female [8].
There were no female specialist respondents in the Den-
tis t Retirement Intentio ns Study. This indicates that the
sample is a good representation of the national dental
workforce aged over 50.

Page 2 of 8
Table 1 Demographic characteristics of older dentists in NSW, Australia (N = 146)
Demographic variable Average (range) or
N (%)
Age 57.5 (50-75)
Sex Male 125 (85%)
Female 18 (12%)
Marital status Never married 0 (0%)
Married/de facto 126 (86%)
Separated/divorced 13 (9%)
Widowed 2 (1%)
Number of children 0 7 (5%)
1 8 (6%)
2 53 (36%)
3 40 (27%)
4 or more 32 (22%)
Age of children Youngest 22.5 (2-48)
Oldest 28.1 (4-50)
Country of birth Australia 112 (76%)
Other 29 (20%)
Self reported health Excellent 41 (28%)
Very good 65 (44%)
Good 24 (16%)
Fair 7 (5%)
Poor 2 (1%)
Reported health of partner Excellent 41 (28%)
Very good 46 (31%)
Good 33 (22%)
Fair 8 (5%)
Poor 1 (1%)

three-quarters intend to stop working by 2018.
Dentists with children intend to retire significantly
later than those without children (p < 0.05). Dentists
with more children intended to retire later than those
with fewer children; however this difference was not sig-
nificant. Male dentists intended to work for slightly
longer than their female counterparts (intending to
retire at 66 and 63 respectively), and general dentists
for longer than specialists (66 and 64 respectively)
(Table 2), although these differences were not signifi-
cant. Several dentists indicated a desire to continue
working until the age of 80 or older (5%), with one
respondent commenting that as long as he remained i n
good health, he would never retire.
Study participants were asked to indicate which of a
number of possibilities they predicted would be the
reason for their future retirement (Table 3). For all den-
tists, the mo st common respo nses were to have more
leisure time (51%), being able to afford to stop working
(49%) and job stress or pressure (23%) (multiple
responses could be selected and there was no ranking of
the responses).
Males were more likely than females to expect to
retire due to a lack of interesting work, with no female
dentists indicating that this would be a reason for retire-
ment. Females more often predicted their retirement to
be associated with ill health (Table 3). Female dentists
expecting to retire because their spouse wanted them to
predicted a significantly older retirement age than males
retiring for the same reason (p < 0.05), while the reverse

were significant predictors of intended retirement age.
Together, these two variables accounted for just under
one third of the variance in intended retirement a ge,
with 27% of variance attributable to current a ge (p <
0.05) and home o wnership responsible for a further 2%
(p < 0.05). This suggests that paying off debt is an
important determinant of retirement.
Semi-retirement
Some dentists transition into retirement via part-time
work. Two-thirds of the dentists in this study worked in
a practice where part time work was available. Of these,
71% were either currently working part time or
Table 2 Average age of intended retirement in NSW, Australia, by demographic variables
Demographic variable Average age of retirement (range)
Sex Male 65.57 (52-90)
Female 63.33 (51-76)
Marital status Married/de facto 65.23 (51-90)
Separated/divorced 65.62 (58-76)
Widowed 66.00 (65-67)
Children Yes 61.50 (51-80)
No 65.78 (56-90)
Country of birth Australia 65.33 (51-90)
Other 65.07 (55-80)
Partner employment Works full time 65.07 (51-85)
Works part time 65.23 (55-90)
Not in paid employment 65.78 (58-80)
Type of dentistry General 65.55 (51-90)
Specialist 61.04 (60-73)
Other 65.43 (55-70)
Town size Capital city 65.40 (56-80)

Accepting voluntary redundancy 1 (68.0) 0 0 1 (68.0) 0 1 (68.0)
Own ill health 8 (70.0) 29 (68.0) 4 (65.0) 8 (69.4) 28 (67.4) 10 (68.6)
Ill health of family member 0 14 (70.0) 0 0 11 (70.0) 1 (70.0)
a
Note: there were three work types recorded in the survey (general dentists, specialists and other dentists). Only the disaggregated results for gene ral dentists
and specialists are presented here, along with those for all dentists. All specialists responding to the survey were male.
Schofield et al. Human Resources for Health 2010, 8:9
http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/8/1/9
Page 5 of 8
considering part time work in the future. Of the dentists
for whom p art time hours were not available in their
current practice, two thirds reported that they would
like the option. Part time work appears to be an attrac-
tive alternative to full retirement, with 54% of survey
respondents declaring a desire to continue working
at reduced hours at either their current location
or in another practice after ceasing full time work.
Thirty-seven pe r cent of dentists intend not to work in
dentistry at all following retirement from t heir current
practice, while 27% plan to work as a locum part time.
A comparison of the post-retir ement plans of general
and specialist dentists can be found in Figure 2.
Policy impacts
The changes to superannua tion arrangements in 2006
appear to have had little effect on the retirement plans
of older dentist s in NS W, with 57% reporting that there
would be no change to their intended retirement date.
Of those who predicted the superannuation changes
would have some impact, two-thirds thought that they
would retire later than previously planned (19% of the

20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Not work in
dentistry
Work pt in
current
location
Work pt in
another
location
Work ft in
another
location
Locum part
time
Locum full
time
General
Specialist
Figure 2 Post-retirement plans of general and specialist dentists.
Schofield et al. Human Resources for Health 2010, 8:9
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Page 6 of 8
income stream for those who work to the age of 60
years [9]. Similarly, dentists were found to generally
work fewer hours per week than other health care pro-
fessionals [ 10,11], which may also explain why dentists

retirement from their current position would mean
complete retirement from dentistry; the remainder
expressed an interest in semi-retirement and continuing
to work on a part time or locum basis, as shown in Fig-
ure 2. Almost one quarter of our sample did not have
the option of part time hours in their current location
but wished they did. Options to increase the availability
of part time work should therefore be considered in
order to prevent these dentists from being essentially
forced into full retirement, therefore exacerbating the
current widespread shortages in dentistry [6]. For exam-
ple, a register of dentists available to work part time
might be one way of covering leave
Semi retirement and practising at reduced hours is not
the only alternative to retirement for older dentists.
Teaching, research, and administrative careers are other
possible ways to contribute to the field of dentistry
while retiring as a practitioner, and may be particularly
attractive to older dentists who feel that the effects of
ageing are such that continuing to practise would poten-
tially place patients at ris k, but who do not wish to giv e
up their ca reer entirely [17]. This situation may become
more and more common as inc reasing numbers of den-
tists push their retirement further into old age. Encoura-
ging potential retirees to consider teaching as a new
career direction is also l ikely to enhance the sustainabil-
ity of dentistry into the future; with more teachers, den-
tal school numbers can be increased, thus improving the
future capacity of the dental workforce to meet demand.
Increasing student numbers: not the short-term solution

to many older dentists, and although they look forward
to having m ore leisure time and spending more time
with family, most also wish to remain involved in den-
tistry in some capacity. This is good news when consid-
ered in the context of previous predictions of worsening
shortages in the profession; however the continued
workforce participat ion of older dentists should not be
taken for granted. Providing a forum for these indivi-
duals to discuss their options as they move towards
retirement may enable specific incentives to be offered
in order to encourage a later retirement date.
Schofield et al. Human Resources for Health 2010, 8:9
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Page 7 of 8
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Mr Bernard Rupasinghe and the NSW
branch of the Australian Dental Association for their assistance in developing
and financing this study. We are also grateful to Dr Brendan White, Dr John
Irving and Bill Cowie, for sharing their expertise during the development
process. Finally, we thank all the dentists who gave up their time to
participate in the study.
Author details
1
NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney,
92-94 Parramatta Rd, Camperdown, NSW, 1450 Australia.
2
NRUDRH, School
of Public Health, University of Sydney, 61 Uralba St, Lismore, NSW, Australia.
Authors’ contributions
DS designed and led the study; SF prepared the surveys and carried out the

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doi:10.1186/1478-4491-8-9
Cite this article as: Schofield et al.: Retirement intentions of dentists in
New South Wales, Australia. Human Resources for Health 2010 8:9.
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